EiR Blog
A Blog For Those Affected By Environmental And Invisible Illnesses Written By Fellow Survivors
How Your Mental Health Impacts Your Overall Health
People often try to make a distinction between the mind and the body. But even though some think of them as separate entities, they actually go hand in hand. Poor physical health can increase your risk of developing mental health problems. Similarly, if you’re suffering from mental health problems, you’re more likely to experience issues with your physical health.
The one thing that’s we know for sure about mental health is that it can affect anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re from a long and supportive family with a lot of money and you have a job, you can still experience issues with your mental health. Unfortunately, a lot of people choose to ignore their mental health problems. However, if you do this, your condition will only get worse. That’s why it’s important to completely understand what you’re suffering from and know what to do to get better.
The Most Common Types of Mental Health Problems
- Anxiety disorders - Anxiety is completely normal if you experience it from time to time. But suffering from chronic anxiety will have a negative effect on your quality of life. For people with this disorder, anxiety rarely goes away. Because of this, it can often interfere with their relationships, job performance, and school work. Anxiety disorders can also lead to headaches, insomnia, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
- Depression – People suffering from depression often stop caring about their health, which can lead to quite a few different problems. On top of that, these people don’t have healthy eating habits, rarely exercise, and may use alcohol or drugs to self-medicate. Depression may increase the risk of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis.
- Bipolar disorder – Those who suffer from bipolar disorder often experience episodes of depression and mania. Bipolar disorder can lead to significant changes in daily habits. Most notably, it can completely change your eating and sleeping habits. You may experience a decline in focus and energy. People who suffer from bipolar disorder have an increased risk of obesity, migraines, heart disease, and diabetes.
Improving Your Emotional Health
If you want to improve your mental and physical health, you will need to learn more about dealing with your emotions. By having great emotional health, you will be aware of your behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. This will help you find healthy ways to deal with stress and problems that you face on a regular basis.
Having strong emotional health will help you deal with certain situations in your life that can lead to anxiety, stress, and sadness. If you’re aware of your emotions and thoughts, you’ll find it easier to deal with losing your job, getting divorced, suffering an injury, and having financial problems.
Keep in mind that your body will always respond to how you feel, think, and act. When you’re sad, anxious, or stressed, you can increase your risk of suffering from physical health problems. That’s why it’s important that you take all the necessary steps to ensure both your physical and mental health is in good shape.
Improving Your Physical and Mental Health
There are quite a few ways that you can improve your physical and mental health. The first thing that you should do is start exercising. Working out regularly will not only help keep in your body in top shape, but will also improve your mental wellbeing. If you’re the type of person that doesn’t like hitting the gym or jogging for a long amount of time, then you’ll be happy to hear that it only takes 15-20 minutes of exercising a day to keep your body and mind in good condition.
Apart from working out on a regular basis, you should also consider improving your eating habits. By eating a lot of processed food, fat, sugar, and fast food, your mental and physical health will steadily decline. Not having proper eating habits can lead to huge amounts of stress and pain on a daily basis. Since the food you eat is supposed to provide your body with essential nutrients, it’s common sense that you won’t be in good health if you don’t eat healthy. By eating healthy, you will reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
Good nutrition is also essential to mental health, and can even help you battle anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia. In order to keep your brain healthy, you should avoid foods that are high in sugar. On the other hand, it’s recommended that you eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, lentils, and cereals.
You should also do research on how to improve your health through supplements and fitness gadgets. Healthy Heroics offers quality reviews of products that will put your on a path to improved health.
The only way to ensure that your mental and physical health is improved is to avoid habits like smoking. Most people with mental health problems smoke because they believe it helps them relieve their symptoms. However, this can only provide a short-term solution. Know that the nicotine found in cigarettes interferes with chemicals in your brain.
If you want to reduce your stress levels and combat your anxiety or depression in a healthy way, then you should maintain a normal sleep schedule. It’s recommended that you get at least seven hours of sleep each night. The next time you get into bed, try to avoid watching a TV show or checking social media on your phone, since this will make it harder for you to fall asleep. Keeping your electronic devices at bay is one of the best ways to improve your sleeping habits.
If you notice any issues with your mental health, you should contact a doctor immediately. Health problems should never be ignored, since acting fast may help you prevent your condition from getting worse. People suffering from mental health problems should seek support from their friends and family members. Although it may be a difficult topic to discuss, you should never be afraid to reach out to the people close to you for support.